


The Monster Within

by SalamanderInk, tisfan



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Labyrinth - Freeform, M/M, Monsters, Odin's A+ Parenting, Self-Hatred, Tentacle Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:42:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21610006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SalamanderInk/pseuds/SalamanderInk, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: He was a monster.He would always be a monster.He swallowed the urge to weep for it.
Relationships: Loki/Tony Stark
Comments: 30
Kudos: 452
Collections: FrostIron*, Marvel





	The Monster Within

If there was ever a time when Loki Laufeyson could burn with rage, this was it. Usually his anger was cold, patient, like a spider, waiting on the web. There were many people who might say differently, those who were the victims of his mischief, but they didn’t know that wasn’t rage. They’d never seen his rage.

Loki rarely raged, and when he did, his entire mind was consumed by it.

At the moment, facing the door to his imprisonment, and quite possibly his death, he raged

He raged, and it burned, melting away the frost in his veins, igniting the fear and anger until he felt his very blood was boiling.

It was useless.

Against Odin, the Allfather, wrapped in chains of magic -- made by his mother, and only he knew how she’d wept over him, when she placed them on his wrists -- he could do nothing.

Loki raged, and his rage was volcanic.

But ultimately, useless.

Odin was speaking, and Loki couldn’t find it in himself to care much. More of the lies about how _very much_ this pained him, how _dearly_ he regretted that it had ‘come to this’. How ironic that Odin dared to suggest that _this_ hurt him more than it hurt Loki when the trickster was the one standing in chains before him, looking death or insanity in the eye. 

People said that Loki was the liesmith, but Odin was the master of it, because even he believed his own lies.

“You will venture within, Loki, my son--”

“You don’t get to call me son,” Loki snapped. “I was never your son. You never treated me as your son. You--” He couldn’t think of the words for how Odin had treated him. Lesser. Not enough. Even with Thor bringing them almost to war, even when Thor-- he’d never been good enough for Odin, never even considered good enough to lurk in the shadow of Thor’s greatness.

He was a monster.

He would always be a monster.

He swallowed the urge to weep for it.

“--for a period of a thousand years, or until you defeat the monster within.”

“Until my death, you mean to say,” Loki sneered.

“If it comes to that, my son, yes, until your death.”

“You are not my father,” Loki spat. He didn’t bother to look at his so-called mother, afraid he would plead with her to intercede with Odin, to protect him and help him as she always had. Or at the very least, to comfort him as he required.

He didn’t bother to look at Thor, standing with proud grief, watching the downfall of the brother he claimed to love. Thor could -- Thor would -- do nothing for him. 

He never had before, after all.

“Do you have anything to say?” Odin asked.

Loki wasn’t sure if Odin meant for him to give a speech, or to plead for his life, or to confide his love for his family — _they were not his family_ — or even to confess his sins. But what did they know of his sins? What did they know of their own sins? 

Odin, who stole a frost giant infant away? Frigga, who raised him as her own and never once thought to tell him? Thor, who nearly killed him when the truth came out, raised his mighty hammer Mjolnir against his brother, without a thought for everything they’d been through?

No, he was not the only one with sins aplenty.

“No,” was all Loki said, and he stepped within. He was not going to shatter his dignity by trying to resist, by forcing Odin to push him through the door. Let them remember a brave, proud Loki. If they would remember him at all.

The door slammed behind him, leaving him in darkness. There was nothingness. Silence. Empty air. No light.

The chill of icy tendrils wrapped around him.

***

Pain. 

That was all Tony could feel at the moment. The heavy pounding in his skull, the pulsing heat of the bruises left by the guards’ boots, and the scalding burn of the scrapes he’d gotten as he was dragged over rough stone and gravel. 

And there was his wrist. 

Fae had always been more _delicate_ than the other races. Even moreso than elves, and Norns knew that elves were like toothpicks compared to Aesir. Thinner, sharper, more versatile and so very, very breakable. 

Fae were on yet another level. They were ethereal, their bones hollow enough to _fly_ , magic in their veins instead of blood, their skin porous enough to let the currents and eddies of seidr flow through them. 

It made them vulnerable whenever they were cut off from their source of power, lightheaded and weak. 

Aesir brutes would probably boast that they were _always_ honorless cowards lacking the _true strength of warriors._

Tony rather thought it was because they’d taken their habits of playing around with their trespassers rather personally. 

Though really, how it differed from their own customs of Hömlag and seeking personal justice against thieves, Tony couldn’t tell. It seemed more merciful, to have them dance and make merry until they dropped of exhaustion, instead of simply killing them off. 

The land would take them afterwards, leeching their magic away until not even a husk remained. It was only fair. 

After all, dead Fae went back to magic, dissolving into the aether and nourishing their brethren in one last gift. It was something that had saved their people more than once, whenever a powerful enough threat appeared, the more of their kin were felled, the more powerful the living became and the better they could defend themselves. 

There was no reasoning with people who simply burned off their dead and resources. 

There was no reasoning with people who shrouded themselves in lies and deceit. 

Fae _could not_ lie. It was a consequence of so much magic running through their veins. Seidr was the Truth of the Universe, after all, and words spoken by their children rang with that world shaking honesty, even when they were cut away from Yggdrasil. 

The Aesir should have taken such in consideration before calling for a delegation. It was a well known fact that a Fae could not lie, not even to preserve the pride of senile old men. 

Even half blind as he was, the AllFather should have expected as much. 

Faes _spoke Truth_ , and because of that they _knew lies._ Knew when they were spoken, what they hid, what they’d wrought. 

When they were plastered over a mural. 

And no amount of magic canceling wards could stop it. In fact, nothing less than bleeding a Fae dry could stop such. As it happened, death would probably occur first. 

If the Aesir didn’t want their dirty laundry aired to all and sundry, they should not have brought a Truth-teller in their midst. 

Though perhaps such simple logic was beyond the minds of club-swinging apes like these. 

Their lies tasted like hypocrisy. 

Tony spared a mournful thought for the young seidrmadr that used to wander amongst the other Aesir. He was shrouded in lies, so much so that Tony never managed to make out his true face and features, and yet so much cleverer, and surprisingly _honest._

_He_ at least had made sure to learn enough of their customs to not mortally offend even the most patient of the fae kind. He had made sure to guard his words, guard his name and respect their own. He had never demanded more than was offered, never spouted fallacies of honor and cowardice. 

Honor _was_ important to Fae. But what they considered honor and what the Aesir did differed wildly, to say the least. 

And yet it had never seemed to bother the one who arrogantly called himself Silvertongue. 

It had amused them all, when he presented himself as such. Perhaps the Aesir considered him such, lumpy brutes as they were, but it would take more to impress the fae. 

And yet, Silvertongue had delivered on the implicit promise in his name. He had praised and cajoled and charmed. He had accomplished what no outsider had managed as yet, he had earned the Fae’s respect, their kinship. 

And he had wrought a treaty between their people and the Asgardians. 

And now, that thrice cursed one-eyed fool had gotten rid of their kin and disregarded a century old treaty for reasons that he would not disclose. 

By all means this should mean war. 

In fact, the sheer amount of deceit that clung to their every word would be enough that no Fae should ever wish to step foot in that cursed land, parley or no, and even less so when so weakened with the dampening arrays around them. 

And yet. 

And yet Silvertongue was kin. And Faes didn’t leave their kin trapped somewhere, cut away from the infinite web of Yggdrasil, unable to come home, through one way or another. 

Silvertongue _had to_ be alive. His seidr hadn’t rejoined their own, his last words hadn’t been whispered to their souls. 

That was the only way they knew. 

They felt him being cut off from them, from their clan, from their magic and support. They felt his turmoil beforehand, his turmoil and anguish. And they had been searching ever since. 

A breadcrumb trail with near nothing to go on. 

Oh they knew his true name, it was famous enough. The second prince of Asgard, walking in shadows and speaking lies—hah! As if— weaving mischief and doing tricks. 

It felt disrespectful, using a name that had not been _given_. 

But there was hardly a thing said about Silvertongue’s own moves, so much as his golden “brother” took to the spotlight. And after asking around a few _pointed questions,_ and using some creative manners of persuasion, they quickly figured that most times, their favorite wordsmith tended to follow in the wake of _Thor_ ’s destruction in order to…. Clean up his messes, as it were. Smoothing feathers and soothing tempers, their little Silver did. And so masterfully, people hardly even noticed how outraged they had been in the first place. 

How proud did that skill make them!

And yet, what a pity to see such clever wordplay wasted on ungrateful swine! 

Following that trail led them through wars and skirmishes and devastation, until the time they saw their trickster’s touch disappear, until they found a place where discontent kept brewing and swelled even more each day, spreading more and more to the neighboring towns and cities and through marketplaces to the rest of the realm. There where more than a few of such places these days, but they only had to find the first to find out when he had disappeared. 

And laugh and scorn the dull-brained Aesir who took their little Silver’s skill for granted and thus never took notice of the growing dissent. 

More fools they. The realms’ war against Asgard was none of their concern. 

Not as long as their kin was returned to them. 

Unharmed. 

Otherwise, they would dance on their corpses as their cities _burned_ , and laugh as the realms plunged into chaos and decimated them all. 

With a shaky breath, Tony picked himself up and dusted out his gossamer tunic, looking around the bare stone walls of the corridor he’d been thrown in as he cradled his injured wrist to his chest. 

A labyrinth. How quaint. 

Their Skywalker was or had been in there. Odin had spoken the truth, somewhat, when he had said as much. There was nothing to do but go on. With a decided step, he started walking. He had a kin to find or a war to start, whichever came first. 

Trap the greatest Wordsmith not born a fae in twisting walls and maddening solitude, cut off from seidr and tales and mischief.

His little Silver had best still be sane when he found him, or there would be hell to pay. 

Odin would rue the day he decided to cross Faekin. 

***

This place was a dump. And a creepy one. Just to think of his sweet trickster locked in there made Tony want to weep. And burn the whole of Odinhouse. 

The stones were grey and drab. And cold, the cold was permeating everything, to the point that some entire slabs of it had frosted over, making the walk slippery and perilous. 

On the other hand, the ice patches provided some blissful relief to his swollen wrist. 

The healing was slow. Tony was cut off from all magic but his own, and for faeries it was a sad fate indeed. 

This land was dead. In fact this land was _death._ Skeletons of creatures were scattered over the ground, sometimes even piled up in the corners as though to greet travelers. Bones of people and rodents alike, and greater things even, the moth eaten skin of a chimera, rough patches of scales. 

They didn’t bother him.

None were his little Silver, he knew, else he’d have felt his mark on those remains. 

Still,, the manner by which those creatures were killed was interesting. Some were completely savaged, others killed quickly and cleanly. 

And yet, Tony couldn’t _reap_ them, couldn’t steal the secrets of their last moment. All because the magic in this area was dead, dampened into nothingness. 

It was frustrating. 

And dangerous.

Tony was used to being a couple steps ahead of the others, having access to a wealth of hidden knowledge, some esoteric offered by ancient sages, some more practical, if just as covert, afterimages sent to him by the manes of dead things. 

Here there was nothing. 

It was too quiet. 

To quiet but for the other being roaming these walls, the faint aftertaste of seidr he could barely taste on these corpses, to weak to ever be recognized. Those dampeners worked fast to. Outside, Tony could track a signature more than a decade old. Here, some of these were barely a day. 

He feared that, if he remained to long, he would fade as well, his magic muffled and dulled until it was unrecognizable. 

There was nothing for it. 

He had a prince to save. 

***

For the first time, something new.

Loki had lingered in this labyrinth, seeking, finding, fighting. Killing. Nursing his wounds. It could have been days or months or years. There was no way to tell time here, and his immortal body didn’t hold the answers. Sometimes he slept or ate but without enough regularity to tell hours between such events.

The labyrinth was empty, long since, of those creatures that Odin sent to slay him, or that dwelled there without Odin’s consent.

He was alone.

And still, he was not released.

Which was when Loki faced an unpleasant truth.

The monster within--

Wasn’t any other creature lost within the labyrinth. It was him. The monster that was Loki.

 _He_ was the monster who must be slain, defeated, vanquished, before Loki would be set free.

For many periods of sleeping and waking and feeding, Loki raged against this unfairness. He was no monster, no matter the color of his skin or the blood that ran in his veins. He was Loki, but that didn’t make him a _monster_.

Trickster God, Silver Tongue.

But not _monster_.

Except the door remained barred to him, and he knew in his heart that it was true. 

Monster. _Beast._

And who could love a monster?

Certainly not Thor, raised as a brother at Loki’s side. Not Frigga, who let Odin close him away in this dark place.

Nor all the Fae who had forgotten him.

He burned with rage. He screamed with anguish.

And he remained trapped. And alone.

But now, something new.

There was someone else in his labyrinth. Someone else, perhaps locked away. To slay the monster within.

Loki raced toward the door, but it was already sealed before he got there. The scent of the intruder was rich in the air. Loki followed. 

Maybe, maybe if he rid the Allfather of one enemy, Odin would have mercy.

He would find this intruder and he would devour him.

Or he would die. And perhaps, in either circumstance, Loki would be out of pain.

There was something familiar about the new creature, something in the scent of him that filled Loki with longing and nostalgia and--

He threw it out of his mind, what little of it remained to him. He was hungry and he was alone, and he would feast.

The creature was small, man-shaped and slender and bleeding.

Loki followed, invisible, barely noticeable as the edge of a shadow. Crept forward, to the creature, who was walking along and muttering, one hand on the wall, turning with each passageway, always to the left.

“Fucking Odin. Fucking Odin and fucking Asgard and _Fucking dead-zone. And yet another fucking stone wall. Damnit.”_

Loki stopped as the creature turned a corner, stepped out of the shadow. There was a faint trail of blood there, dripping, unnoticed, from wounds the creature had suffered. Loki bent and touched the wetness with two blue fingertips, rubbing the vitae over the pads. He sniffed. There was glamour there, rich and true and… _familiar_.

Did Loki know this creature?

He hurried on. Whatever it was, the creature was hurt, and the blood splatters would lead to its downfall. Would have already if Loki had not been quite so thorough in ridding the labyrinth of _other monsters_. They would have smelled that fresh blood and come running, the same way Loki had come running. The same--

The creature had stopped, staring at the dead end. It was a trap-end, but Loki knew the ways here, a single lever would open the door, let him through to the other side, where the water was clear and pure. 

The creature could obviously smell, or hear, the water. Needed it.

Now, now was the time for Loki to strike, while it was baffled by the lack of a way through, while it was distracted and wounded.

But perhaps, first, some conversation. Loki had been alone, a long, long time. What would it matter if he played with his food before he ate. A little news of the outside world.

“Everything in here is not what it seems,” Loki said, a half-step out of the shadow, enough for the creature to see his silhouette, but not the full form of the monster he was. No need to frighten it. Not yet, at any rate.

The creature smiled, a quirk of the lips that sent a flicker of recognition deep in Loki’s heart, but the feeling was soon gone, buried under the bloodlust. 

“You might say such, but aren’t I here too? What does it say then?”

“It does not matter if you are not what you seem.” Loki said. “You were sent, like all the others were sent, and you will die and I will be free, or I will die, and I will still be free.”

The words came, matter of fact, and for all that Loki appreciated the word games, he had others matters in mind. There were things he wanted, _needed_ to know. 

“But tell me, what news, from the outside? Has any dared to drag down the Aesir? Fare well the fae? Is there… news? Has the Futurist seen anything of note? Do you even know?”

The creature’s eyes narrowed at his queries. 

“What would one such as you know of faerie? Are you not Odin’s creature? Or is it once again an illusion?”

The creature paused, eyes widening in shock, before it walked even closer to Loki. Foolish little thing, unable to heed the warning in its veins, telling it when a superior predator came across its path. 

“Aaah I see. Of course. Not everything it as it seems, you said. I had long wondered what had been under that glamor. I would wager that no one but the caster had truly known.” 

Loki listened, not really hearing what the creature had to say; in the end, he supposed it did not matter. Clearly they knew nothing of import. He knew not why he had expected otherwise. He moved forward, letting the light fall on his blue and scarred skin, showed off the many tendrilled limbs that propelled him through the dungeon, much faster than any creature with two legs could run.

“Now you see,” Loki said, “the monster within. And I have not fed, nor sated myself in some time, you will slake that hunger. Do not be afraid.”

The monster smiled, feral.

“I am Loki, and you will kneel before me.” 

Because that name was the last thing he owned. The only thing that had kept him from truly losing himself to madness. 

The creature, the tiny man who was of no human born, faced him, unafraid, but also without defiance. Instead with an expression of curiosity, pity, and something else. Something Loki did not quite understand.

“I know who you are,” he said.

Loki paused in his course, something hesitant and wary stilling his claws. There was power in those words, and something else, different. Something he’d not heard since his skin had turned cursed and his mind had embraced the beast. 

“But I still thank you for giving me your Name, little silver. It is a great boon, for all that you may not quite know what you’ve done.” 

The small man kept moving forward, but Loki still felt frozen in place, something soft and vulnerable sparking deep into his heart. Something like recognition. 

There was only one person to call him that. Flashes of bell like laughter, hazel eyes and mischief dragging him through the woods in a mad dance, the feeling of belonging, even for a moment…

But it hurt too much. It was another one of those illusions called up by his treacherous mind, making him hope and wish and fall to the heart-tearing loss of everything he had been. 

He couldn’t afford to fall to it again. Baring his teeth at the intruder, at his _dinner,_ Loki made a move to threaten, to quash this little bug and those feelings it had evoked in him. 

But the strange man was quicker; moving under Loki’s guard and stepping on the ice shards as though they couldn’t hurt him. Foolish, or brave, Loki couldn’t tell. 

But there was something arresting to his prey’s swiftness, its determination. He couldn’t help but find himself...curious. 

It wasn’t aggressive, not like Thor charging at his opponents, or desperate as his former meals had been. No, instead it was _purposeful._ But strangely, its aim wasn’t to harm. 

Once more Loki stayed his hands. 

The prey’s eyes shone gold and mesmerizing, it’s voice showing a deep, heavy quality. 

It hooked him. Loki could see nothing but that swirling gold, feel nothing but that smooth voice, calling his name, owning it. 

How foolish did one have to be, to give their name to a faerie?

“...Loki.”

He remembered... The first time he came into their midst, those beings full of ethereal grace and wild magics, free in their mischief and their spirits, he had felt more at home by their fires than he’d ever felt in Asgard’s hallowed halls. 

He knew why, now, of course. A monster’s foundling pretending to be a prince. 

Fae had always liked lost children. 

They had made him one of theirs, even with the lie staining his skin. A lie he had never known about. 

But even then, even as comfortable as he’d been, he’d never dared to give his name, even with his lover’s skin glistening with the sweat of their lovemaking, even with those glittering eyes shining with affection and mischief. 

He’d never owned himself enough to agree to it. Letting himself be one of those whispered about in stories, those who got enthralled by faerie and left for their lands, never to return, except sometimes decades or centuries afterwards, _changed_ somehow, _Other._

_Come with me and leave your life behind,_ those eyes used to say, on those nights. And always, Loki, beholden to his King and country answered: _not today._

But Loki was no longer bound to anyone’s service. He was forsaken. He’d been thrown away, discarded for no longer fitting his purpose. Locked, but not even in the dungeons in the bowels of the castle. Instead, left to rot, away from the sight of the populace, better left forgotten for all the shame it had brought upon the Royal Family. 

But a foundling could still find its home amongst the people of Underhill, amongst those who rode in the Wild Hunt, those who danced through the faerie mists. 

And when they were invited to join the revelry, what could possibly hold them back? 

The man who now held him in his thrall… was a fae. 

None other would hold so much power over him simply through his name willingly, foolishly given. 

Perhaps he’d known that all along. Perhaps in his heart of hearts, he’d wished to give himself over to the people who had welcomed him as one of their own, who had never asked more of him than he’d been able to give, and never resented him for what he hadn’t. 

That smell... Wildflowers and earthly magic, muted by the dampeners carved deep under each stone, it made him think of dusky skin in firelight, glimmering magic and swirling lines coursing over lithe bodies. 

The fae’s eyes glittered with hidden banked power, the thrall lightened over his mind now that the bloodlust was letting place to reason once more. 

The more himself he felt, the more horrified at himself and who he was, _what_ he was and had let himself become. 

Loki recoiled from the fae’s grip, sheer revulsion making bile rise in his throat as he reviewed his past actions through the lens of a conscious cognizant mind, the number of beings he’d ripped apart, creatures he’d feasted upon. He looked at his hands, blue, clawed, covered up to the elbow in rusted, flaking blood. Black, greens, reds and purples mixing over his skin, traces of the carnage he’d carried out, proof of his monstrosity. 

His eyes widened, disgust warring with the sheer terror at the sight. _What was he?_

His eyes, he remembered too late, were _red._ He clenched them shut, trying to shut off their bloody color, the monstrousness he was seeing, the traces of his actions displayed everywhere his eyes could lay. 

But could one truly run from themself?

“Hey, come on. Open your eyes, Little Silver.”

The hand against his cheek caressed his skin gently, soothingly. It wrenched at Loki’s heart. Only one person had ever called him thus. His Futurist, his Merchant of Death, the one who had taken his hand when he’d first came in the fae’s circles and held it throughout. His lover, his heart. 

His Futurist had seen him so debased, so repugnant. 

His Futurist that he’d almost murdered. 

Loki felt sick. 

What had he done? What had he become? 

Had he always been such a monster? 

“Come on, Silvertongue, look at me.” 

But Loki couldn’t. He could never bear to look at those golden eyes, who’d always looked at him kindly, as though he were precious and _worthy,_ how could he possibly look at them again, knowing they would only reflect the abhorrence he himself felt? 

He loathed that blue skin of his. He wanted to blame it for his past actions, but somehow he knew it was pointless. He knew jotnar were never actually as beastly as he’d let himself become. 

How long had it taken him to fall so low? 

“”Come on, lover. Don’t be so dramatic. Open those pretty eyes for me.” 

_Dramatic._

Loki scoffed, outraged at the flippancy of his former lover. 

From rage or spite or perhaps simple distress, he let his eyes snap open and stare down his fae. 

Let him watch, then, if he was so eager. Let him see the mark of his monstrosity, of the horrors he’d committed. 

What else could he do? Loki owed him that much. 

He could only be thankful the fae hadn’t used his given name to thrall him into compliance. By the laws of his own people, he would be well within his rights to do so. What some called a just right, others called slavery. Did it even matter anymore?

“Pretty, Stark? Is that how you would call those nightmarish _things?”_

But the other man did not look repulsed, nor scared. If anything he looked sad, and just as kind as he always had. 

“Yes, Loki. I believe you to be just as beautiful as you have ever been.” 

Loki grimaced, enraged at the gall, at the kindness playing with his feelings like that. 

How dare he say such sweet words as though they could possibly be true, _how dare he_ speak as though there was still a future for them both? 

How dare he say exactly the words he’d been yearning to hear? 

“How can you say that? Have you looked at me? Do you not see the horror I’ve become? _I am a monster,_ Stark! If you had a single ounce of good sense left in your fool brain, you would get as far from here as you can while I still have enough of my mind to know _who you are.”_

Something infinitely tender crossed his lover’s face, and he would have called it affection had it been directed to anyone but him. 

“Oh, _Loki…”_

The hand on his cheek caressed him softly, fingering gently the thin points on his ear. His Futurist smiled, a tragic smile but a true one nonetheless. 

“...I can see no monster.” 

Loki reared back, outraged. 

“Do not _mock me!”_

“Loki,” the futurist said, infinitely sweet, infinitely patient. “Tell me, lover, what are fae _known for_?”

“The good folk,” Loki said, sullen, like a recalcitrant child before a test, but compelled to answer nonetheless, by the power of his name if not by his own heart. “Are known to provide hospitality, make bargains, pay what they owe and collect their due.”

“And?”

“Not to--” Loki stopped, choked and spluttered with outrage, with some impossible realization. “Not to tell lies.”

“You are correct, as usual,” Stark said, his lover. His friend. “I cannot tell lies, it goes against everything, every part of my being. The truth may be concealed, I can misdirect, you know that much is true. But I cannot lie. And I tell you now, on everything that I am, my blood, my bone, my heart, and my hope. You are no monster.”

If the Futurist, if his fae, his lover, his very own Stark, said it… Then it had to be true. The fae didn’t lie. They _couldn’t_. It would be turning their backs on everything that they were. It would be diminishing their power unspeakably. A fae would sooner bite their tongue off than tell a lie, if they even knew how to form one.

It couldn’t be true, though, could it? Loki had been locked within this maze, so long. Generations it felt, had passed, and still he labored within, trying to defeat a monster which was nothing more than himself.

A monster he couldn’t possibly defeat.

The great, impossible task.

And each year within the maze had made him more, not less, of a beast, a great ravening and raging _thing_.

“I see no monster,” the fae said, still looking at him. “And you— you gave me the gift of your name, willingly. If a little arrogantly. You know what I could do with that gift.”

“Destroy me utterly,” Loki said. He closed his eyes. If death was coming for him, finally, he didn’t want to see it.

He shouldn’t be afraid, not after so long, not after everything he’d done. Death would be a mercy, a blessing. A moment to lay his head down and _rest_.

But it was for a kiss, and not a kill, that the futurist approached him, and when Loki felt those feather-soft lips on his, he nearly bolted back in shock.

“No monster,” Stark repeated. “No monster. You are no monster, Loki. You never were. What you are is _suffering_.”

“It makes no sense,” Loki protested. “I was told, freedom, when I defeated the monster within, and there is nothing here, nothing but me-- I am the--”

“Loki,” Stark said, very softly. “They _lied.”_

Loki said nothing, too lost in his own wonder, grief. His mind a whirlwind of thoughts tumbling after each other, all with claws and teeth, like feral kittens at play.

“My love, my darling,” Stark said. “Little silvertongue, my sly one, my clever trickster. There are many things that you are. A monster isn’t one of them. They lied. Let me give you comfort, and then, let us leave this place behind.”

Rage had long since fled, leaving confusion, sorrow, guilt, in its wake. But this was new. Longing.

_Desire._

But once trust was lost, even if it was only trust in such simple things as _deserving_ something good, and being _cared for,_ it was hard to find once more. Fear, pain, betrayal, they were easily found, and the effects were hard to shake off. Loki stared at the futurist with deep suspicion. 

“Comfort, for the creature that parents teach their children to be afraid of?”

At that, the futurist, his fae, his Stark, actually smiled. “I’ve met a few under-the-bed monsters,” he said. “They were, it seems, unreasonably attracted to dangling feet and bare ankles.” He stood on one foot and the boot that covered the other melted away like a dream. “Does this do something for you, my dearest silver? Should you be short of breath at the sight of a bare foot?”

“What are you _doing_?”

“I’m teasing you, of course, my love,” Stark said. “There was a time when you used to enjoy that.” He grew serious, then, his looks shooting flashes of heat. “What was done to you was monstrous, but it did not create a monster.” He wiggled his foot again, provocative and light. “You don’t want me? Or is it that there are other parts of this body you might want uncovered?”

Loki growled, low in his throat, torn between madness and desire, the urge to bite and rend, and the urge to do… _other things_ , instead.

Stark moved his hands, slowly, drawing Loki’s attention to the delicate wrists, long, strong fingers that danced, clever, over the buttons of his shirt. When it was hanging loose and open, showing a bare sliver of the flesh beneath, Stark met his gaze. “Do you not want me-- it? I… you use to take great joy in sharing pleasures with me.”

“Did I?” Loki wondered. Those memories were so old they didn’t seem like memories anymore. Like dreams of memories, nearly forgotten on waking.

“You did,” Stark told him. “Can I help you to remember, dearest silver?”

“Will you help me remember?” Loki asked, and it was more than the memories of love making he wished to revive. He wished to bring back from the dead memories of himself as… not mortal, because he’d never been that, and not human, since that wasn’t what he was as well, but memories of himself. Memories before the monster and the blood lust had descended upon him.

Memories.

“I will help you.”

And Stark took him into his arms, not merely ignoring the icy tendrils that make up the lower half of Loki’s body, but actively seeking them out, caressing each one in turn. Placing his lips on frozen skin and warming it again.

“It does not disgust you?”

“What should disgust me about that which is only yourself? Are you not who you are, regardless of what form you’ve chosen?”

“I didn’t choose this!”

“Then perhaps, _after_ , we can figure a way to choose a different form,” Stark said. “Even if we do not, this is you, and you are not a monster.”

_Fae cannot lie._

“I don’t know if I can trust you,” Loki said, even as Stark was growing closer, was touching him, was making him feel things. “I don’t-- I don’t know if I can trust myself.”

“Hold me down if you don’t trust me,” Stark said. “I don’t mind. Lift me up, if you can’t trust yourself. I’ll rejoice in it. You won’t hurt me. I won’t bring harm on you, my beloved silver. I love you.”

_Fae cannot lie._

And even if the Fae could, Loki very much doubted that Stark _would_.

“Very well, then,” Loki said, as if he were offering some great prize. As if the choice was his. Perhaps it was; perhaps it always has been. His choice. “Comfort. And then, escape.”

Stark tipped up his head expectantly, and Loki lunged for him, not entirely certain, even now, what his choice was, but as soon as his lips touched Stark’s mouth, he knew that there was no other decision that needed to be made. The fae tasted of honey and wine, of simple truth and complicated desire.

He tasted of love.

He tasted of home.

Loki groaned into Stark’s mouth, eager suddenly, to sample the wares. Eager to get hands and-- tendrils of icy skin against the fae. Eager to touch and caress, to kiss and fondle. 

_To have and to hold._

“You’ll take care of me,” Stark said. “You won’t let me be hurt. I trust you.”

Loki shuddered with desire, and Stark was stroking those icy tendrils, even as they wrapped around his limbs. 

“You like that,” Stark said.

Tendrils wrapped around Stark’s thighs, spreading them until his clothing protested. One thin tendril slid inside and the material was simple to tear, to rend, to be rid of it. Stark’s feet left the relative safety of the ground and he dangled there, like a child in a swing until another tentacle encircled his back, keeping him enclosed.

Safe.

_Mine._

More tentacles swarmed over Stark, and Loki watched, almost as if they had a mind of their own, as they stripped his clothes away. Gentle tendrils, like fingers, explored the fae’s body, tipping him backward to display him in all his glorious nakedness. Loki reached, touched, his own hands going, knowingly, to all those tender places on Stark’s body that had brought them both so much joy.

“Feel with me,” Stark said. “These--” and his hands caressed the tendrils “--are part of you. Know what you do to me.”

It was harder than he could have thought, allowing himself to feel everything he wrought. Even though his tendrils were bringing Stark pleasure, even though they knew his body as well as Loki did, admitting that they were part of him, allowing them to be part of him, was almost more than he could bear.

But Stark was shivering, shuddering at the touches, mouth open with pleasure, eyes closed as he lolled in Loki’s grasp, feeling. Enjoying. _Enraptured_.

Still, it was not until Loki’s tendrils had found the entrance to Stark’s body, started working that opening, coaxing the muscles to relax, that Loki could, in fact, feel through them. They produced lubricant, easing his way, and then he could feel Stark’s body clenching around him, the heat and slick of him, the way he moaned and thrashed under Loki’s ministrations.

The way Stark went pliant with consent, and the way he twitched with anticipation.

One, two, three tendrils in, and he was thrusting them in and out of Stark’s willing, eager hole.

Stark was moaning continuously, and then it became begging. He tried to reach for Loki’s member, thick and leaking fluids, but Loki held him down, spread eagle, giving everything, allowing nothing.

Feeling that tight squeeze, Loki grew heated, letting the fae’s pleasure warm him. He removed his tendrils from Stark’s opening, gaping and eager for him, and pressed himself within.

“There you are,” Stark said, opening those beautiful brown eyes and gazing at Loki with nothing but affection. 

“Here I am,” Loki returned, and he rocked them together, using his tendrils to move Stark in time with his powerful thrusts. 

It was perfect and messy, sinful and a benediction. It was bliss and it was agony.

Loki rutted, not quite mindless, knowing what a gift he was being given, and when he called Stark’s name in his ecstasy, Loki knew. He knew, this was what he was made for, this is who he was.

He was…

Loki, Silver Tongue. God of Mischief. Son of the Frost Giants. _Faekin._

And Stark was his lover and his love. His one, great purpose.

“I love you.” 

And breathed against his lips, like a benediction:

“And I, you” 

***

Sated and languid, Tony let himself rest in his little silver’s nest of tentacles. He felt pleasantly sore, and incredibly content. 

He had been searching for so long, tracking and interrogating, all to look for this beautiful blue mess of a man. 

A changeling. 

It was rather unexpected, but Tony couldn’t really find himself surprised. Loki had always felt a bit _othered_ from his people. Aesir were a rowdy lot, supposedly welcoming to their own, at the least, and yet he’d known for some centuries now that his lover was always left on the sidelines, observed with suspicion, mistrusted and misliked. 

Which was a terrible shame, because it had left his lover so terribly wounded. 

Tony didn’t much care that the Asgardian Royal Family had discarded their greatest asset. More fools they who would be unprepared when Faerie finally took arms against them to end their tyranny. 

But he could not abide the crippling self loathing they had inflicted on his little love. 

Loki. 

How far must his mind have gone for him to just give out his name to the first stranger. For him not to recognize him standing there before him. How wounded. 

Fae had never done well with isolation, and even less with contradictory and impossible injunctions that they felt compelled to follow. In fact Fae never did well with rules at all. Or hierarchy. 

They were loyal, as ever, to their own selves. 

And their kin. 

He tipped his head back, gazing at his blue lover, snoozing peacefully. He wondered how long it had been since his Silvertongue last slept. Since he’d last known this much calm and peace. 

Probably not since the last time he’d been in his arms. 

He knew Asgard had always been stressful for his little blue prince. He’d always had to try and bend himself out of shape attempting to fit in, to conform to their expectations. 

Seeing the blue flesh and raised markings, he figured it was no wonder. 

Fae had always loved changelings. Most of their progeny, of their new kins, were changeling-borns. 

Tony should have figured it out a long time ago. Perhaps he had, but Loki had never shared, never even let himself entertain the thought of not being Thor’s true-born brother, or Odinson. 

And as rude as asking one for their name, questioning their parentage was even ruder. 

Evenso, they’d taken him into their fold, made him one of their own, hoping to offer him some protection from the noxious place he was forced to come back to, again and again. 

And Tony, each time they laid together, asked him for his name. Without fail. It was his way of offering his lover freedom, a way out from under Asgard’s thumb, a way to cut ties from those pernicious people, who asked and asked ever more, dangling before his love’s hopeful face such small things as acknowledgement, acceptance, affection. 

Every fae had seen, over the ages, the harm found-families could do to their changeling children. Small broken faces, too tired to even cry, hard eyes deep set in a cautious glare, mute children from whom no laughter could ever be heard. 

How many times had they snached those away, taking them to a place of laughter and joy, a place without worry or hurt. 

And _how_ Tony had yearned to steal Loki away. To shelter him from those who would see in him a monster. 

But he had smiled, and gone back, time and again. 

And then he hadn’t come back. 

Oh, how Asgard would pay for harming Faekin. 

How they would rue the day they had wronged the Merchant of Death’s lover. 

But that was for later. 

Now, Tony’s quick mind rested and churned, formulating plans and stratagems, ways for them to leave this dreadful _hollow_ prison. 

Yet another thing Odin would pay for. 

He himself no longer had any magic to spare, and Loki’s beautiful green seidr was muted as well, he knew. 

But he was clever and stone could break, if one was careful enough in their workings. It was something he knew better than many others, how to break things, how to destroy and annihilate. 

There was a reason he was faerie’s emissary, and it wasn’t his great talent at diplomacy. Perhaps Loki should wish to become their diplomat, in time. Once Tony had spread enough devastation that none would ever dare underestimate fae again. 

Shrewd eyes looked around them, at the long expanse of clear rock walls, the hard mortar used to fit the stones together that he had not even dare try to chip at on his own. The clear coating of ice surrounding them, long pillars and shards sprouting from the ground like crystals. The carefully hidden mechanism that hid the clear stream. The gutters through which water flowed away. 

All flowing water must join back to a greater body. Streams to rivers, to lakes and seas and oceans. 

His fingers slowly gliding over one of his lover’s many frozen limbs, a devious idea hatched into his mind, a fiendish smile growing on his face. 

It was child’s play after that for them to carefully freeze up more and more of the flowing water, letting it expand inside the cracks, and crack up the stone. Little by little, fissures became fractures until great bit of stone fell apart under the slow constant force of the water and ice. 

Loki’s natural magic was forcing the walls open under his will, with Tony’s careful eye watched the built for weak points, for the easiest path downward. 

And sure enough, they soon found themselves faced with a decent opening into a dark as pitch pathway. It seemed to slope steadily downward, a small scraggly thing the was barely wide enough for them to walk through, but once again wherever ice flowed, Loki could freeze the path, widening the cracks, ripping open aeons old rock, and letting it flow away once he let his influence go, the ice melting away in a flickering stream, flushing out rocks and pebbles until their path was cleared. 

And Tony watched on with feline eyes as his lover showed his cleverness and skill again, used the abilities he’d been taught to despise and find monstrous as a way to break away from the jail those very same people had built for him. 

He could almost find it… poetic. 

Because, as much as Tony was skilled in destroying things, there were a few things he cared enough about to want to _build._

Creation and destruction went hand in hand, after all. Watching ice destroy stone and water create cave, almost made him laugh out loud, wild, joyful and fae. It was marvelously symbolic in its symmetry, wonderfully ironic in its practice. 

Because as much as Tony wanted to tear Asgard down, and bring the Aesir and their King to their knees… 

He wanted to build his Loki up first. Wanted to see the proud and wild mage that had first caught his eye, wanted to see him unchained, with his full potential on display in the clever smirk he sported. 

Wanted to see Loki be all that he could be, and cherish every moment of his recovery. 

Perhaps he would hear his lover whisper his true name in his ear as they made love.

And then, at that moment, they would belong to each other. 

Forever. 

But for now, it would have to wait

Because as they finally breached the last wall and Tony felt his power rushing back to him and his wounds healing, he could see. The wonder on Loki’s face as he watched his hands glow with their usual green sparkle and spidery webs of seidr crawl over his blue body like a long lost friend was as beautiful as it was heartbreaking. 

Freedom was theirs, and Tony sure intended to make good use of it. 

He had a one eyed dimwit to hunt and a pretty blue changeling to bed. 

This was going to be fun. 

**Author's Note:**

> There's also link to the art : here!


End file.
